Education & FAcilitation

Strategic, Efficient Training

When you invest in training for your team, you expect that the benefits will outweigh the costs. But what if the training doesn’t meet the needs of your team or the training material is presented in a way that doesn’t suit your team? You’ll end up paying full price for only half the education, and your team may be less equipped as a result.

This is why laying out a Training Plan, your master guide for training implementation, is so important. We work like sleuths to get into the heads of our clients and understand who the “learner” or audience is. From the learner’s perspective we ask, “What is it that we need to know that will ensure the learner acquires the knowledge and skills to be successful?”. We conduct a training needs analysis to identify gaps between where the learner is and where you aim for them to be. With this information we’re able to plan, sequence, and design training to be purposeful and seamless, while leveraging feedback to make the content as relatable as possible.

Asking Powerful Questions & Mentoring

We want people to learn in a way that will change their lives, so we ask powerful questions that get them to think more deeply about their work. Something unique happens when we ask clarifying and probing questions, your team members open up and begin to think differently about how they learn and what makes a learning environment more powerful for them. This is how we co-design, collaborate and mentor. The difference might seem subtle, but it has a drastic effect on how your team will absorb the information, gain new skills and transform their thinking.

Adaptable to Any Industry and Business Size

Our services aren’t restricted to any one industry or typical client. We appreciate the challenge of learning the ins and outs of a wide range businesses and industries. We are there to provide an objective, third-party perspective free of bias. This way we recommend what we think is the best course of action, which we then customize to fit each project’s unique requirements.

Creating Powerful Curriculum

Creating Powerful Curriculum is a unique method we’ve developed to ensure training goals are met for both the teacher and learner. Together we determine which concepts will resonate with your participants, identify the sweet spot between depth and detail, develop the perfect sequence , and create a plan that gives you flexibility to cover your entire curriculum.

Below is a framework for the Creating Powerful Curriculum sessions, which we use as a starting point and then collaborate with you to adapt the framework to your situation:

Together, you and us start by understanding your audience. Our questions include, what are learner expectations? What do they already know about your topic? Why does your topic matter to them? What are their experiences with your topic? From there together we look at your body of knowledge and help you focus your content on meeting the needs of the learners.

You’ll dive into your content story and identify the “big idea”. Then we help you to assemble, differentiate and sequent your curriculum so it is customized for your teaching style and your audience. We address your facilitation goals. How do you want to grow as a presenter? Would you rather facilitate or teach? Our approach is holistic making your outcome more powerful.

How much content is enough? What will you mention, explain or immerse the learners in? Which of those is best for your audience and the content you teach? How will you decide? We walk you through a skillful approach to analyze the depth and breadth of your content so you can make intentional choices and meet the learners where they are and reach the desired outcomes.

We have an ingenious way to determine which activities and exercises will meet your learning outcomes. We’ll teach you this and how to analyze your activities. You’ll know how to facilitate learning, and how to assess learning, without ever giving a test.

We’ll explore and implement a well-researched learner-focused methodology for lesson planning. You’ll complete the process using backwards planning, also called reverse-engineering. Backwards planning keeps the goal at the forefront and the goal is meeting the needs of the learners, incorporating your teaching/facilitation style and achieving the outcomes.

We’ll make sure all of the dots in the lesson plan are connected for learner success. Then last but not least, we’ll review your teaching style and help you refine facilitation strategies that give you the ability to present your content with unapologetic confidence, humour, and authenticity.

Education & Facilitation Blog Posts

Working with Shawn changed not only the way I approach my webinars - but has carried over into my client work as well. She helped me nail the content and flow of my sessions, so that participants leave with major value from what they’ve learned, and they can take action immediately.